★★
Directed by: Scott Spiegel
Written by: Michael D. Weiss, Eli Roth
Starring: Sarah Habel, Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay and Zulay Henao
Film Review by: Rachel Pullen
Hostel: Part 3 Film Review
Ah, 2011, the year of the royal wedding, of Charlie Sheen’s public meltdowns and Kim Kardashian’s more public divorce and the end of the Harry Potter franchise…thank god, and amongst all this piping hot pop-culture action there was the final instalment, the last part of the puzzle, the straight to video wonder…Hostel: Part 3.
Let’s get the layout of this flick out the way first, 4 friends (4!!! I thought Hostel only allowed 3 kills at a time! Aw, man, it’s gonna be a crazy film) go on a bachelor trip to the one and only Las Vegas, and in the same style as all these films they wanna get laid, they wanna get drunk and they wanna dry hump ladies on the dance floor to hard house anthems…no please, not again.
But oh no, one of the friends does not come back to the hotel room and everyone has to go looking for him which means they bumble around using flip phones and soon uncover the underground American version of the human hunting club, it’s like Scooby-Doo but with blood and sadness.
Of course, the Americans like to do things bigger and better, of course, this time the people being killed are observed by a room of hunting club members who place bets on what way the executioner decides to kill the victim, they press buttons, place bets and are served drinks by sexy ladies…ah man, that’s the American Dream right there.
Just before you think things cannot go any more ham we find out that one of the friends is a member and this whole thing is a set up in order for him to get a bigger thrill, kill his best friend and take his lady! In true Hostel fashion, it all ends in a big bloody showdown…with fireworks and bald eagles…or something American and flashy, I mean it’s Vegas baby.
But what do we get from Hostel: Part 3? What separates it from the rest? Well aside from 4 people and the gambling idea…not a lot, the twist ending was predictable, the gore had been played out before and lacked any kind of suspense, and the characters were dry, over masculine and without any kind of arc for us to invest in.
So what did we learn from it? Well, surprisingly it made me realise that the ambiguity and deliberate character hatred that was injected into the first Hostel was something to value, watching this franchise made me almost want to take back my slight distaste for the first instalment.
I had to see how bad horror could be to appreciate the finesse that Eli Roth has when it comes to making gore based horror, he adheres to the idea that less is often more, Hostel should have stayed a single piece of work, we should never have seen how the bidding on victims worked, how the hunting club expanded worldwide, for the real fear came from not knowing what was on the other side of the door.
But back to Hostel: Part 3, for all my bad-mouthing I found the pace of the film enjoyable, and at only 88 mins long it does not drag too much, I mean who needs more than that time wise to cut someone’s face off? The characters are not detestable and you can tolerate them to a certain degree, and of course, the high action ending is gonna press the buttons of anyone who likes guns, knives and big explosions.
And that my loyal readers is the end, we made it …wipe the sweat off your brow and take a seat, for Hostel has been a wild and somewhat repetitive ride, but fun. Never underestimate that it was fun and if we have learned anything from it, it’s never to trust people with dog tattoos…ever, or dogs…they have human eyes, actually just trust no one.
#RachelPullen
